Tame
by KissKissCrush
Summary: After 3000 years of monotony, Aro is confronted for a second time by a being whose existence he never imagined and who confounds and tortures him with his inability to control her. As his usual methods of seduction repeatedly fail he tries to hold onto the person he was as his desperation to own her starts to undo his carefully constructed emotional distance from everyone he knows.
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: I am in no way Stephenie Meyer. _

_AN~So, I thought this would be longer but my brain isn't working so good just now. This is my shortest fic so far. I thought I was going to rewrite it and maybe it would unfold the way _You_ did but it did not. Maybe something will happen during posting but that seems unlikely. This is first person Aro and is more like a series of scenes almost like journal entries than an actual traditional story. This is my darkest Aro. _

**_This story has a consistently sexual theme including language and semi-graphic sex. Consider this the content warning for the entire story._**

* * *

**Prologue**

Women often orgasmed while I was killing them, for some it was the first they'd ever had. It must happen to many if not all vampires but most I knew never suspected that their victims' thrashings had other causes than death. When the humans were plain or otherwise unattractive, this could become disturbing and I sometimes stopped feeding and simply killed them to escape their thoughts. It was vile and intoxicating with attractive humans though, when they realized what was happening and they struggled between fighting off the thing killing them and clinging to it as their pleasure rose. I wouldn't have told anyone, but I often slowed their deaths enough to let them finish. And after that, for them, death was like falling asleep after making love, which included a rush of those complicated human emotions. Some of them even thought themselves in love with _me!_ Right as I was in the act of murdering them! Silly things. Sweet of them though. Most people were more sweet and more terrible than any of them knew. Knowing this, I had a greater sympathy and a greater disdain for mankind than anyone else. I identified with their innate greed and selfishness but the profound sacrifices they would make for each other were baffling.

Like Bella Swan wanting to die for that insipid Cullen boy. And now their actual, impossible daughter here in my home. And I wanted her in every way possible. I wanted to taste her strange blood and hear that quickened heartbeat speed more as she writhed under my touch, came while I fucked her. I wanted her to give herself to me and the desire to seduce her, _own_ her, was taking over my mind in a dangerous way.

I wondered if she was a virgin, if she'd allowed that filthy dog human to violate her. I wanted her to be pure when I took her. It wouldn't really matter though, maybe it would enhance it, because whatever clumsy experience she might have had with him would be nothing compared to what I intended to do to her and she would know it afterwards. I knew the mechanics of women's bodies—both mortal and immortal—better than any of them ever would.

Aside from the ones whose minds I had absorbed while being involved with them directly, I had read the minds of every type of woman while killing: the repressed, the traumatized, the lascivious, the sweet, the wanton, the elderly, the celibate. Woman who masturbated regularly, women who hired men to perform degrading acts on them, women who had never even looked at their own vaginas let alone touched them. Prostitutes, virgins, lesbians, asexuals, transsexuals. And then every kind of doctor, therapist, scientist and researcher. As well as men with prodigious sexual skills. And, of course, rapists, men who saw the very darkest side of women's sexuality, only truly known to them. And to me in the moment I drank from them. I found their acts repellant, but I valued the knowledge it gave me about things woman wanted but would never admit to wanting. Force was crude and boring. I could have forced anyone but what would be the point? I enjoyed _willing_ submission, if not in my followers, always in my sexual partners. I wanted them to want me so that I could tease them near to madness before instructing them about the hidden possibilities of their own bodies. Force gives you no power after it's done, but making someone need you and then eventually answering that need just enough to preserve it but not quite satisfy it, was real power. They would follow you anywhere for that kind of treatment. Just enough, never enough. But just good enough.

I wanted Renesmee Cullen, that fragile, hybrid beauty with her hummingbird heart, to want me like that. And if she were anyone else, I could have gotten her by simply giving her exactly what she wanted even if it was something she couldn't tell me she wanted because she didn't know it consciously herself. The problem with me getting her was that I couldn't give her what she wanted because I didn't know either. I didn't know what kind of woman she was.

But I would find out and then she would be mine for as long as I wanted . . .


	2. Impudent and Meddlesome

**1**

It was early in the morning. I didn't usually expect visitors at this hour. My human employees didn't wake this early and the sun was up enough to prevent vampires from crossing the square to the entrance.

But have a visitor I did. An impudent brat of a visitor who strolled right into my own library like I'd sent her a personal invitation. She didn't even introduce herself, she just expected me to know who she was even though she'd been the equivalent of a six-year-old the last and only other time I'd seen her. I _did_ recognize her of course but even if I hadn't I might have known her to be a Cullen just by her attitude. They all thought the rules didn't apply to them because they had their own silly set of rules._ Living openly among humans!_ I should have stopped them years ago. The amount of risk they took with our lives really was inexcusable but I held an annoying fondness for their precious coven leader. If only it were possible to hate him, I could have obliterated them already.

She sat on one of the tables even though there was a selection of perfectly acceptable chairs. She was wearing a pair of filthy tennis shoes and if she'd gone as far as also putting them on the table, I might have killed her right then. But she didn't, she just sat there swinging her legs while we talked. Or _she_ talked. It felt more like she was giving me orders and the entire experience was so preposterous I just sat there, stunned, waiting for her to finish.

"And really, I think you owe me anyway . . ."

"I'm sorry. I 'owe' you? Why do I owe you?"

"Well, there was that thing where you tried to kill me. Don't you remember like stomping into Forks in your little Halloween costumes and trying to cut my head off?"

I blinked at her, grateful I was able to freeze my face into a perfectly neutral expression because I was seething. Did she really come in here and start casually demanding things from me and then do something as childish as _mock my clothing?_

"Yes, I recall my visit to that sad, somber little town but I do not recall making any attempt to physically harm you, my dear."

"No, but that's why you were there."

"We came to destroy an abomination and when none was found, we left, causing no harm at all to anyone present so I hope you'll forgive me my confusion and perhaps elaborate further on why it is you think I owe you anything."

"Because I'm going to save your life."

"Really? And how are you going to do that, little Cullen?"

Her fierce obnoxiousness was just barely edging up on adorable and things had been very boring lately so I decided to let her go on. If she became tedious, I could maybe find out what half-breed blood tasted like. Hmm. I ran the tip of my tongue over my teeth, tasting venom start to gather in the back of my mouth.

"I don't know exactly. Alice just said I was going to."

"So you're here based on a premonition from your aunt?"

"No, I was going to come anyway but luckily Alice had that vision the day before I left which was really good because I had nothing to use against you and now I can totally use it to bribe you into doing just about whatever I wanted, I imagine."

"'Bribe'?"

"Yes. If you don't do what I want, I will just let you die if an opportunity should arise in which I could save you."

"You're a very impetuous girl. Did you even think about the danger of invading my home and assaulting me with a threat like that?"

"With the threat to not let you die . . .?"

"No, you threatened _to_ let me die if I did not help you."

"Oh yeah. So are you going to do it?"

"Of course not! This is ridiculous. How do I even know you're not making this up?"

She hopped off the table and approached me, completely without any kind of fear and held out her hand so it was hovering next to my cheek. I watched her without moving, hoping my annoyance was obvious. I could hear her heart and though its beat was quicker than a regular human's, it sounded just like I remembered, only slightly deeper now. This was its usual rhythm. She truly did not fear me. I glanced at her hand and she set it lightly against my cheek.

Immediately I saw Alice in a living room I did not recognize. She was reading sedately at first and then she sat straight up in her chair with a look of blank panic. She paused for five seconds and then turned and looked at me—at Renesmee as I was seeing her memory—and asked in a frightened voice why she would be in Italy. I heard Renesmee's voice explaining her trip. Her family didn't know and they weren't happy. Her mother forbid it and Alice stopped her and said she had to because _I_ would die if she didn't. I was confused about why they would care if I died until Alice said that Renesmee would as well. Bella was shouting and they all turned on Edward who reluctantly confirmed what he'd heard in Alice's mind during her vision.

"So your threat is hollow. You would die as well," I said when she took her hand away.

"Nope. They are independent events. You will save me first so that I can save you. If you don't save me, you will almost certainly die but I can choose to or not after you've already saved me."

"What happens if I kill you right now?"

I was angry enough to do it without really weighing the consequences.

"Then you'll die."

I considered her offer. I knew Alice's visions weren't concrete but I didn't know what would have to change for the future to change. Would simply sending her away so her life would never be in danger near me be enough? No, because what if it happened when she was out of reach? I would have thought it was a trick but I knew Edward to be a terrible actor and he was incensed by what he'd heard. It appeared I did not have a choice to not only assist her, but keep her near me constantly until after these events had played out. Events I did not know the timing or nature of because she hadn't told me those things.

I reached out faster than she could move and grabbed her hand. She didn't pull back. She was smirking at me. I hadn't paid attention the other times she'd touched me because she was already showing me memories and now I found that I could not hear her mind. It was like golden static. I let go and stood.

"Is me not killing you right now the same as me saving your life?"

"Nope."

She flicked a piece of lint off the front of my jacket and then demanded I feed her. I told her I knew she could survive perfectly well on human blood and I wasn't going to provide a special diet for her. She drew her finger across her throat and made a grotesque slicing noise. _Dear God_. Did Bella and Edward send her off to La Push to be literally raised by wolves?

I arranged for food to be fetched for her and then went to my room alone to begin what would no doubt be an exhausting process of figuring out how to keep from murdering her long enough to save her silly life.

* * *

**_One week later . ._** .

"Did I hear a heartbeat coming from that room?"

Caius. Dammit.

"Yes."

"Branching out into new perversions?"

I cared for him as my brother, but sometimes I wanted to push Caius down a flight of stairs.

"No. She's not a human. She's a hybrid."

"What?"

"She's half-vampire. Edward Cullen's daughter, in fact."

"What is she doing here? Are they here?"

"No, just her. She wants help with something."

"From _you?_"

"Obviously."

"What does she want?"

I wasn't going to tell him about the savior pact but it was probably safe enough to reveal her original objective.

"She wants to know when she's going to die."

"How old is she now?"

"A hundred and fifty-three."

"Has she changed in that time?"

"She says she hasn't noticed any changes since about five years after her birth."

"Then why is she concerned about it? She's already well beyond human years."

"Because that other hybrid who showed up in Forks that day we were there said he'd reached maturity at seven years. She believes she's aging faster and she's now older than he said he was then. She hasn't been able to find him to see if he's still living."

"Why does she think you can help her?"

"Because I am 'really old' and I 'have a lot of books.'"

"Does she think you also have a lot of time to waste?"

"I do have a lot of time to waste."

"I hope you didn't tell her that."

"Of course not, I'm obviously going to require something from her for my assistance. Having the Cullens in our debt could be useful."

"I really do not understand your obsession with them . . ."

"It is not an obsession. It is caution. You saw how many gifted vampires turned up to support them that day. If they decided on a revolt of some kind, it could easily end poorly for us."

I knew for certain that it would end in our deaths but I had never revealed the details of Alice's vision from that day to anyone. Seeing my own head being ripped off by some pathetic newborn was too humiliating to relive in retelling it although I strongly considered it numerous times to shut Caius up about it because he continued to pester me about leaving that day with obnoxious regularity for a solid decade afterwards. Even bringing it up now was likely to set him off. Walking peacefully away from a scene like that was unprecedented and he knew I was hiding something.

"Well, you always know best, Brother."

He gave me an obsequious smile and turned away down an opposite corridor than I had been headed. I had long ago ceased being annoyed by his passive-aggressive comments and could usually just ignore them but I had been extremely agitated since Renesmee had shown up and his tone of voice added an unwelcome layer of frustration to my already maddened state.

I needed relief. I needed to regain some of the control I had lost. I found it easily in one of my newer "girlfriends." Even though I knew every inch of her mind, she was learning new things about herself in being with me and I was still at the stage of mapping those fresh experiences with her. But even that became boring after a few hours and I sent her away just before dawn and then lay there in the slowly lightening room wishing there was a vampire equivalent to smoking to meet the need for subtle self-destruction I had been feeling since the second Renesmee's heated fingers had touched my face to reveal to me again the unacceptable possibility of my own death from forces I was helpless against.

Damn Alice and her meddlesome visions.

I should have killed them all years ago.

* * *

END NOTES: Sulpicia does not exist in this story. Aro is a narcissistic, slutty manwhore.

Hmm, I _did_ add quite a bit to this in editing. You may now get your hopes up for a more substantial fic, my pretties. AND I found the outline for another story I had completely forgotten about. AroBella. Could be good. Going to start the draft today and see where it goes . . .


	3. A Little Touch, Here and There

**2**

**Six weeks later . . .**

"I thought that wolf-boy had some kind of claim on you . . ."

"He did. But he's dead."

I watched her for some sign of sadness but she was either uncaring or as talented as I was at disguising emotion. Both possibilities were attractive to me although the first would make her harder to control. And I wanted to control her.

I had met—and killed—many thousands of beautiful human woman and even at times felt a significant amount of lust to briefly consider them sexually, but never seriously. And never without turning them first. That seemed perverse. But Renesmee didn't need to be turned. She was what she was. A human only not and a vampire only not. I could smell her hybrid blood, it was light and airy and slightly sweet. It was unsettling to be attracted to someone with blood.

And I was attracted to her. To an embarrassing level. I'd taken to having to set a book in my lap like a bloody human teenage boy when she was in the room as I frequently became partially aroused while in conversation with her, while smelling her forbidden, alien blood.

But what of her? How did she feel towards me? When we touched I saw only what she showed me when she placed her warm little hand on my cheek occasionally. I displayed open delight whenever she did this because I knew not doing so would be revealing, still I was afraid that every time she would see more, see the desperation under my cheery facade. See that I was her slave.

"That's unfortunate. How did that happen?"

"He was killed by a vampire."

"Which vampire?"

"My uncle."

She didn't look up from her book and her voice was utterly contained.

"And why would your uncle slay your boyfriend?"

"He wasn't my boyfriend."

Hmm.

"When did this happen?"

"Last year. I'm not finding anything here. You?"

"No, I haven't either."

I had. I just didn't want her to know. I would give her the information eventually. After she'd performed her duty to save my life. I would tell her when I was done with her because I knew she would leave after.

I carefully set aside the little book I was holding so that I could sweep it away unnoticed when I left the room.

"Would you like human blood or human food for dinner?"

She put her hands in her hair and pulled it up and away from her face. When she released it, it fell back to her shoulders looking fuller and alluringly tousled. Suggestive, like she'd just been engaged in some energetic, wanton act. Like the ones I wanted to perform on her. Would eventually. I had never failed to seduce anyone I wanted. And even if she was smarter than any woman—possibly any man—I had ever encountered, that didn't mean she wasn't vulnerable to physical desires. Sexual ones.

"Ug, I hate human food."

"Blood then?"

I had been firm about not dragging animals in here and then having to dispose of their stinking corpses. I could have, of course, had them taken away with the humans but then the others would have known I was letting her order me around. And I wasn't going to traipse through the woods with her while she hunted either.

I had finally convinced her to drink human blood after making sure the human food was as unappetizing as possible but she wouldn't drink from a person herself, only if I brought it to her. I was pleased to have talked the precious Cullen miracle baby into regularly consuming human blood but I resented bringing it to her like a servant. Watching her drink it though, lick the edge of the cup, wipe it from her lips, sucking her fingers after was good enough to endure it. Her brown eyes had a slightly red sheen to them now and I felt it marked her as mine.

"Yes, fine."

_Yes, fine._ Like I was forcing it on her rather than fetching it and carrying it straight to her greedy little hands like she was the Queen of Sheba. But it would pay off once I had finally fully captured her and freed myself from the frightening power she was exerting over me, possibly without even being aware of it. I wondered about that. She behaved with what appeared to be genuine innocence sometimes but at others her actions seemed very deliberately bold. She would lean a little too close, brush her hand across my arm, once my thigh, while observing something in the same text.

God, I wanted to do the most horrible things to her . . .

* * *

**Three weeks more . . .**

She spent too much time with Athena and it concerned me. I didn't know if Renesmee was the type to gossip but if she'd described any of my behavior with her while we were alone it wouldn't be good for me. Athena would tell her husband and he would know how deeply I had allowed her to affect me.

Renesmee didn't know that my actions were unusual but they would. Since she and Athena had become accidental friends recently I had had to watch what I said and did with her just in case. Before I had been at relative ease. I let her make a mess of my library, rifling through books I never let anyone touch. I let her boss me around because I knew it would make her believe I was gentle and harmless which led to her letting her guard down, allowing physical closeness I was sure she wouldn't have otherwise.

Still, I had only touched her a few times and she'd completely ignored it. Once while passing her to reach another shelf, I put my hand on her waist to move her aside slightly. It wasn't necessary, it was an excuse to make contact. She'd shifted without even a glance, staring at her book. Another time, more blatantly, I had pushed her hair back over her shoulder. This was actually practical because it was constantly in the way but I extended the gesture to brush the back of her neck with my fingers which was obviously not practical. She paused that time, she was still looking down but her eyes stopped moving from her reading for a few moments and then she shut the book and moved away from me.

She resisted these and other silent advances and I was sure it wasn't just ego that had me convinced she was interested in me. She seemed to go out of her way to create infuriating tableaus anywhere she was when I was there. She wasn't vigilant about her skirts, sitting sideways on couches and in chairs with her legs drawn up, displaying the lower sweep of her thigh nearly to her underwear. Or laying face down on the carpet while she read creating a sharp maddening curve along her spine as well as enhancing the shapes of her lower extremities as she crossed and uncrossed her ankles. Sometimes I felt a little bit like a pervert watching this. She looked young. Not a child but still a girl eternally hovering between teenager and adult. But she wasn't young. She was beyond elderly by human standards. Maybe it was just the prolonged unrequited lust that was causing this uneasiness. I rarely needed to be so cautious, or spend so much time observing my conquests clothed. Any hint of skin was more striking, near dizzying, because of it, making me feel like some desperate virgin attempting to peek into a bathhouse.

And I had stopped sleeping with other women. It was too complicated because anyone I was with knew I could hear their thoughts so they expected me to give them exactly what they silently asked for and it seemed rude if I didn't. But I couldn't focus on them. I didn't care what they wanted even if it gave me control over them. Their climaxes no longer felt like victories, more like chores I had performed too many times. The perfect orgasm for them and a complete waste of my time.

I wondered constantly about the mystery of what she wanted, what would cause that same level of excitement in her. The possibility of never knowing, and therefore never being able to fulfill it, was unacceptable.

* * *

END NOTES: New AroBella fic is just over 5k words into the draft! I want to stay in TwilightLand forever . . . 


	4. Drowning

_AN~Oh, such lemons for you here . . ._

* * *

**3**

**Four more weeks . . .**

"I've told you everything I know."

"No. You must have forgotten something."

"You were the first of your kind I had ever encountered, how could I know more about something I didn't know was possible?"

I had hidden the book that contained the small account of a hybrid, recorded by a French vampire during the revolution. It was a chaotic time in their country and vampires were not being vigilant about their concealment. There was a rash of pregnancies in the countryside but most of the women simply died before their children were fully formed. Expect one, born to a prostitute who was kept alive until the birth by her immortal lover who then took the child and left her to die. There was a small coven in that country that did what we did, try to keep our existence quiet. They tried to destroy the child. They managed to stop its heart but it lived, its venom sustained it and it became like a regular vampire which meant that it was frozen like that, no longer growing and had to be destroyed anyway because it was now essentially an immortal child and subject to the same uncontrollable behaviors.

But as far I understood it, she was not venomous. If her heart stopped, she wouldn't become a vampire because she didn't herself have the ability to create new vampires. She would die. Except that it seemed from this that it would be possible to turn her at that point, complete her vampirism and ensure her immortality.

And to think that I did not know this before she came for the simple reason that I had never read this old journal because French people annoyed me.

"We should do something fun," I suggested.

Best to derail her as long as possible.

"Like what?" She was flipping through books at random and far rougher than made me comfortable. I came up behind her and grabbed her hands, stopping her as well as caging her. Almost an embrace, her small frame contained within it, my arms making dizzying contact with hers from shoulder to wrist where I held her.

"A hunt?"

She broke my grip and turned but didn't push me away, bringing her face within inches of mine.

"With you?"

"Would you like me to go?"

"Oh I don't think you would like it . . ."

"And why is that?"

"Because you can't kill a bear in a suit."

She yanked on my tie.

I stepped back and shed my jacket. I ignored her laugh when I folded it and laid it over a chair instead of just chucking it on the floor like she probably would have done. I loosened my tie and slipped it off, tugging the knot free with a sharp gesture and laid it on top of the jacket.

"Better?"

She eyed me and then said, "Shoes."

"Do you want me to go into the woods barefoot or are you simply trying to see how far I will undress?"

She didn't react to my joking invitation towards more nudity. She stepped out of her flats and kicked them aside. I sat and removed my shoes. She was standing over me when I sat up.

"Roll up your sleeves."

I did and then she reached down and undid the top button of my shirt. Her fingers paused on the second and a rush of insanity overtook me as I thought she might continue. She didn't. She reached back and pulled the tie from my hair then stepped away and surveyed me again.

"You'll do."

She went and opened the window. We were at least seventy feet up from the ledge to the shallowest part of the ravine. We looked down together.

"Can you fall that far?"

"Probably, but I don't need to . . ."

She pushed me forward and leaped on my back, wrapping her arms and legs around me. I didn't hesitate, she wanted to be brave, I would see if it was possible to scare her. I went up instead of down, swiftly climbing the sheer side of the outside castle wall until we reached one of the towers. I swung up onto the ledge and stood facing outwards. We were well above a hundred feet up. I leaned forward, just enough to shift her weight and force her to look down. Her grip tightened minutely.

I stepped off the edge and let us free fall down into the ravine. Halfway to the ground, she laughed. If she had been afraid before it had turned into delight. It pleased me more than I wanted to admit. She let go of me before we landed and used me as a catalyst to launch herself forward, streaking ahead into the trees.

I chased her. It was an odd feeling. I never hunted humans this way. I never ran around outside at any time really. I followed her easily. Not just her body but her scent, rushing back at me, gathering other smells with it before it reached me, altering its composition slightly. Wet, green moss laced into the flowery smell of her hair. The cool, living tang of a branch that had been snapped, exposing its pale flesh was layered over the lovely mellow fragrance of her skin, her blood. I sped up to catch her and then she vanished. I stopped. She must have jumped into a tree and I wasn't going to look up. I just waited. I knew she would get bored and that she would underestimate how much faster I was. And she did. She thought she was going to land behind me, I'm sure, but by the time she hit the ground I had already turned and she ended up in my arms rather than sneaking up on me.

She smiled, her face was flushed from the run. Actual blood, glowing under vampire skin, tinting it pink. I wondered if she would blush when embarrassed or aroused.

I was going to kiss her. Now was the time. I had caught her physically and I thought she must have understood its metaphorical significance as well. But she turned her head just before our lips touched.

A heartbeat had appeared in the trees and she slipped from my hold and dashed toward it leaving me alone and nearly shattered with the cruel disruption of that almost moment. When I had almost had her.

* * *

We hunted regularly after that. The wall under that window became pocked with little dents from climbing back up after. I didn't explain that that mode of leaving and re-entry was necessary and she didn't question me.

A few times she convinced me to drink animal blood with her. I didn't take much because I was afraid of having my eye-color change too much. It wasn't a particularly unpleasant taste but it wasn't satisfying to any real extent and I couldn't imagine how they lived on it.

But she let me get closer there hidden in the trees. Let me slip my arms around her from behind, rake my fingers through her hair. She always made the jump from the window clinging to my back. Her warm lips had grazed my ear on one occasion as we dived into the trees and I came very close to tripping when we landed. The slightest touch was now enhanced by all the waiting, making it more exciting than if she'd done something unexpected and overtly sexual.

I didn't understand her resistance. I didn't think it was fear of me. She did not fear me. And I felt certain she wanted me.

* * *

I knew she wouldn't attend the first half of the celebration but I was certain that she would be at the other part, now entwined in her girlish friendship with Athena. We did it once a year. A party. An anniversary of sorts to mark the day we'd first claimed Volterra as a home. Humans were gathered selectively from all over the country. We needed more than we could reasonably take from one place. Who has a feast without bringing more food than the guests can eat? And we did have guests, friends and "relatives" and sycophants came from every part of the world for this night.

The first part began in the morning, in the largest room. It went most of the day, with all of us feeding whenever and however much we wanted from the parade of humans that were led upstairs from the dungeon in a regular stream.

I appreciated human blood the way humans did with wine. Without looking I could discern their race, their place of birth, their diet and their approximate age. Even if you lived in the same place, ate the same food, belonged to the same family, the taste of your blood shifted with your age. The young tasted a little watery until puberty spiked their flesh with its hormones and dumped a vial of richness into their veins. Some people liked humans at this age but I found it overpowering, the flavors didn't have any subtly, it was an assault to your throat and stomach.

The old tasted flatter, and their blood tapered off into a concentrated tangy sweetness that was as crude in flavor as those burgeoning adults.

Men tasted differently from women as well. The choreography of their blood was less varied, more forceful, while women, who experienced a more dramatic flux in their hormones throughout life, had a wider variety of tastes depending where they were at in their cycles. Women now had the ability to control those things in more varied ways than in the past. They could chemically dictate when they menstruated or stop it altogether. Women who menstruated regularly had softer, sweeter blood than those who did not and those who used hormonal birth control had a slightly unpleasant chemical flavor to their blood.

The best tasting humans were females between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five who drank a lot of water, ate red meat, spent a moderate amount of time in the sun and allowed their cycles to happen naturally. There was less of this kind of human than ever before now. It was like having a certain type of wine I enjoyed suddenly begin vanishing from stores and having to search for that vintage in attics and basements for the remaining bottles.

Most vampires knew what kind of humans they liked and most also preferred young women but they didn't know why some of them tasted differently because they didn't know what their lifestyles were like the way I did. Usually, I didn't have the luxury of being picky but at this event, I did and I could pass through the terrified mass of humans, searching their minds for the ones I wanted.

This girl had dull yellow hair and an ordinary face. I almost passed by without touching her because she looked too young but when I brushed her cheek with my fingers I found that she was actually in her early twenties. She lived on a farm and worked outside. She had never consumed any hard liquor and was a non-smoker. She was days from the completion of her next cycle. I pulled her from the group. She screamed and fought like they all did but I barely heard it. I dragged her away, behind the others, behind a tapestry. Usually I didn't drain humans for Renesmee while others were around. They assumed she ate human food or drank alone. I bit into the girl's wrist and found her blood to be as nearly perfect as it was possible to find now. I wanted to drag her whole from the room and try to convince Renesmee to drink straight from her because the taste would be spoiled somewhat by cooling and coming into contact with the glass.

She stopped resisting after a few moments and I had to remind myself to stop before I taken it all so I could fill a cup for her. I wasn't sure if she would be able to tell the difference between this girl and the blood I'd brought her before but I would know and watching her drink something I knew was delicious would be magnificent. When I was done, I left her on the floor and slipped out with the glass.

She was just waiting for the nighttime portion of the events. Athena had dressed her. Modern clothing was not usually the fare and she was wearing a long gown, like you would only see in a renaissance painting now. It was light green so it complemented her unusual bronze-colored hair. The neckline was much lower than anything she commonly wore. It wasn't vulgar but it exposed parts of her I hadn't seen before. Just a bare hint of shoulder and the smooth plateau under her clavicle. Nothing of her breasts at all, only a faint shadow in the center of the bodice. The smallest suggestion about what was underneath and like her brief caresses more exciting than a more revealing outfit would have been.

She took the glass and I watched her drink. She made a small sound after the first sip and it sent an agonizing jolt of pleasure through me. I would do this tonight. It had been months, that was long enough. She was obviously just waiting for me to act now.

I had had plenty to drink that day so I waited with her until the party completed and then took her back with me. I had instructed Athena to remain close to her, giving as a reason that we would all have to deal with those infuriating Cullens if someone attempted to drink from her but really I was concerned that someone else would try to seduce her. I was afraid that I might reveal my desperation in snapping the head off of any man who tried. Most of the inhabitants of the castle believed I was sleeping with her already and if I was I would be past jealousy having already owned her, and I wouldn't care if anyone else did after. If I personally prevented anything they would know I hadn't.

This part of the festivities wasn't so very different than human parties. Everyone sat around talking and playing games, attempting to cheat at games faster than they could be caught. Cheating was part of the game here.

She had no problems being accepted. Everyone who met her was immediately captivated by her. The smell of blood with vampire scent over it was just as desirable to them as it was to me. I had known she had this quality before but she had never in my presence been in a room with so many others. It became very apparent that she could have anything she wanted from anyone.

She was absorbed into the crowd quickly and where I couldn't follow her without appearing obvious. So I went about ignoring her presence for the sake of my sanity and trusted that Athena would protect her.

I knew that she would have to sleep and I stayed closer to the front of the room so that I could maybe catch her when she left both so that I could ensure she left with no one as well as have the opportunity to finally make a more direct advance on her. I decided I would do it slowly though and in lulls of conversation I pictured removing that elaborate dress, revealing that unique and impossibly rosy vampire skin of hers in sections, applying my hands and mouth to it as I did so. It was because of this that I nearly missed her when she did go at close to two in the morning. But Athena was with her, doing her job too well by escorting her all the way to her room. I couldn't knock on her door, that was too pathetic. I needed her on neutral ground if not my ground.

Many had already left so it wouldn't look so very odd for me to disappear either although I usually stayed much longer. Caius had gone already though leaving only Marcus as host with Jane and Alec as lovely-faced little child bouncers. It didn't matter, I couldn't wait any longer.

I encountered Athena almost immediately coming up the stairs from Renesmee's room.

"Ness is in bed. I made sure no one tried to hurt her. They all loved her though, I really don't think anyone would have even without me there."

"Can't be too careful . . ."

Athena was sweet and quiet and I was still baffled by her apparent love for her husband. She was far too good for him in just about every way. And I let her close to me the way I did not let females close because she was not a potential partner. She was a replacement sister in many ways. Emotionally, she was my family more than my brothers were and I only allowed it because she was extremely discreet and would never use it against me or gossip about my less imposing habits.

"I think _you're_ being too careful, Aro."

She put her hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek lightly. I caught something terrifying in her thoughts when we touched. She thought I was actually _in love_ _with_ Renesmee Cullen. But she hadn't said it to anyone else. I actually felt guilty about her thinking this, thinking me better than I was. I didn't care about many people's opinions of me, but I cared about hers and while she knew me to be heartless and promiscuous, I couldn't disappoint her by simply following through. But if she now believed I was different, she would feel sad to discover I was not. That I only wanted to own her, not marry her. And Renesmee was her friend so it would hurt her more when the true nature of my desire was revealed when I inevitably ruined her.

I abandoned my plan for that night. I couldn't do it in the wake of that revelation. I would find some way around it later. Fabricate some justification that would make what I wanted to do okay.

I went to my own room and changed from my party clothes. Now I had the night ahead. To think about her. To look forward to and dread seeing her knowing I would have to again wait to get her.

I took out the Frenchman's journal, prepared to read the section about the hybrid child again but then suddenly a heartbeat appeared in the hallway. I knew it wasn't a wandering human because it was too fast and I knew her heart like a familiar song. It got closer and then stopped outside the door. I hid the little book and waited.

She was standing still. She had to know I could hear her. Finally I went to the door. She was standing there like she had knocked and was waiting all that time. She had changed as well, into a t-shirt and jeans.

"Did you need a glass of milk, my dear?"

She stepped forward and lifted her face, tilting it under my chin. Her breath heated my skin for a second and I was distracted enough by it make a surprised sound when she ran her hand up my thigh onto my crotch.

Athena could hardly blame me if the girl literally came to my room and attacked me. I pulled her to me and shut the door. She wilted a little in my arms but I was sure it was an act. She wasn't some virginal damsel. I had become convince of that over the months since her arrival by the way she moved, the seductive ease with which she expressed herself. She was sure of herself the way only the sexually experienced were.

She slipped from my arms and when I turned she was already undressing. I had planned to do this slowly the first time but I also wanted to do whatever she wanted. She'd lifted off her shirt, showing that she hadn't been wearing anything under it.

I stood still, pretending aloofness as she undressed the rest of the way and then moved forward slowly. I didn't look at her body, only her face. If she thought her nudity was inconsequential she wouldn't think she could use it to control me. It was difficult because I wanted to put my hands on her very badly.

Instead I went to kiss her but she put her hand up between us and then used both of them to undress me. It was disorienting trying to discern her wants from her actions. They rarely lined up with anyone. But if she wanted to think she had control, fine. I let her continue. She didn't look down at me either when I was naked and it bothered me.

"Lay on your back."

She was trying to do what I did. Make me willingly submit to her. I complied, still pretending near boredom but I was nervous now. She stepped on the bed and stood over me. Then she looked down, and observed my arousal with cool appraisal.

"Nice."

I forced myself not to grab her and drag her down to me. She knelt and sat on my stomach. She took my hands and guided them up her sides, onto her breasts. Her skin was strange, pliant but not like a human's, resistant enough that I wouldn't need to be too careful about hurting her. She slid one hand down to touch herself, something I had intended to order her to do. She stopped after a few seconds and placed her fingers over my lips. I parted them and she dipped the pad of her middle finger into my mouth so I could taste her. I ran my tongue over her finger, she tasted like warmth, sweet with a hint of salt.

Abruptly she moved backwards and sank down onto me in one smooth motion. Fuck she was warm, almost too warm. And she wasn't being slow now. She rode me in a harsh rhythm, making sounds that were feral and almost obscene. I felt her tighten around me and knew she was close to finishing. I grabbed her hips roughly and even though I had intended to last longer I decided that coming inside her as she came would be exciting enough to risk exposing my slight lack of control.

She paused and looked at my face.

"Don't come yet. Let me finish first so I can watch you."

She wanted to see her effect on me. That was fine. I could control what she saw. Let her think she was special in pleasuring me.

She finished with a soft, extended moan, her fingernails clawing at my sides. They were just strong enough to be felt but not to hurt. I wondered if Alice had gotten a nice little vision of this. Maybe that's why Edward was so angry. The thought was perversely exciting. Him having to know that his daughter would soon be enthusiastically fucking me, a person he hated.

I closed my eyes, gathering myself so I could decide exactly what kind of display to put on for her. She moved off of me and I felt the bed dip slightly. I opened my eyes and saw she was standing, getting redressed.

"Going for a stroll?"

"Nope. Just tired now. Think I will go to sleep."

"I was going to let you sleep here, you know . . ."

I thought I sounded calm and not completely flabbergasted by her awful behavior.

"Aw, that's sweet. But I like my own bed."

Sweet? What!? She was buttoning her pants. She was really going to just leave.

"I thought you wanted to watch."

"Yes, but I didn't say _when."_

Then she_ laughed_ at me, threw her underwear in my face and walked out.

No one had ever dared do anything like that to me. No one had wanted to. Once I had them in my bed they were perfectly happy to stay there and let me manipulate them until I was bored.

I laid back down, feeling angry and confused. She'd _used_ me. She hadn't even kissed me. She'd treated me like I was a fucking prostitute! It made me want to track her down and take her wherever I found her. In a hallway, an alcove, the middle of the square outside, I didn't care. I finished myself imagining it, with her panties crushed in my fist. Her name surfaced in my moan as I climaxed.

This was bad. I couldn't let that happen again. Now that I knew she liked control, I knew she'd like it taken from her and the next time she wouldn't be able to think clearly enough to pull something like that.

* * *

But I didn't have to stop it from happening again because the next day she acted as though nothing at all had occurred. Like she hadn't thrown herself at me. If I could dream I might have thought it was one but no, and I still had her underwear. I should have thrown them out immediately. Keeping them gave her control over me. Marking my room with her, marking the territory where I reigned as hers.

She conversed with me casually but otherwise ignored me, spent her time reading and lounging about with Athena. Her act was pretty thin though after what she'd done. She couldn't pretend she didn't want me after that.

After a week of that I knew I would have to do something. I couldn't approach her outright without looking desperate so I resorted to the saddest and most basic tool there is for getting what you wanted: jealousy.

It wasn't hard to find someone to play the part I needed. Any of our secretaries would have been willing but I knew she wouldn't feel threatened by a human, knowing I wouldn't take it very far, it would have to be another vampire. Someone who could actually seem a rival: Francis. I already slept with her occasionally anyway so she wouldn't think it was odd being approached. I found her in a sitting room and trailed my fingers over the back of her neck. She rose silently and followed me. I'm sure she thought we were going to my room but we walked for a few minutes until I found her heartbeat in a corridor and then I shoved Francis into a wall and started kissing her. She was a bit of an exhibitionist and didn't resist. I heard Renesmee's footfalls and her heartbeat grow louder and then stop. I turned my head and saw her watching us but she looked amused, not upset.

"Sorry, didn't realize this hallway was taken."

Then she walked right by without another glance. I continued with Francis for a few minutes so I didn't look obvious and then told her we'd have to finish later. She shrugged. Being with me was boring. God, boring. I wasn't even upset about that though, I was too enraged.

I sought the hallways until I found her heart again, coming from my own library where we'd first met when she came here, where we studied every day looking for her answer. The one I already had.

She was reading with her feet against my desk, her toes clinging to the edge. She didn't look up when I came in. I shut the door and flipped the lock.

She looked up when I reached her, as placid as if we were standing on a hill together watching a sunset. I snatched her book and threw it behind me and then yanked her from her chair and turned her, pushing her forward over the desk. She made a small, pleased sound but didn't say anything. I undid my belt and the front of my pants and then pushed her skirt up. She dipped her back and I tore her underwear away and thrust into her immediately. She pressed back into me, mumbling encouragement. I leaned forward so I could whisper into her ear.

"I'm sure you're a perfect little princess in your family, but you're _not here._ I know about you now. What would they think if they knew you were letting me do this you?"

She didn't answer, she reached back and buried her delicate little hand in my hair and tugged hard enough to hurt. I grabbed her wrist and wretched it free, bringing it back down and pinning it to the surface of the desk.

I did not wait to finish this time and I didn't want to give her time to either. She couldn't go on thinking she had control over my climaxes. Over either of ours. I came quickly, my fingers pressing into her wrist and her thigh, knowing there would be finger-shaped bruises there later. A reminder of who she belonged to now.

I pulled away and turned her. She looked a little glazed. Good. She probably thought I was going to do the same thing to her that she had done to me. But I wasn't going to that. I wanted her to think I was before I made her come so hard she'd forget her own name and never be able to be satisfied with anyone else ever touching her again.

I pressed my thumb against her and she parted her legs a little. She let her head fall back, exposing her throat and the living veins that contained her maddening blood. I waited until she was trembling a little bit and then moved my hand so I could enter her again. But she brushed me away.

I knew she hadn't finished, I would have felt it. Smelled it. She took my face in her hands and I thought she was going to kiss me but she just looked at me and said, "You fuck like you're drowning."

She slipped out from between me and the desk and, again, walked out on me. I put my hands down on the wood surface in front of me.

I _was_ drowning.

And she was holding me under.

* * *

END NOTES: Oh, Nessie, you are something, aren't you?


	5. In Sleep, Exposed

_AN~I'm back! Finally got around to editing the end of this and I'm hoping that this and the release of the boxed set next week will kick start me enough to get MTYN back in motion as well._

* * *

**4**

"We need to go to south America."

"I thought you'd already been there . . ."

"I have but I didn't have anyone who could read minds with me at the time."

"Why didn't you take your father?"

"He can only read current thought. I need someone who can find out everything about a person. There could be the tiniest thing that they've forgotten that could help me find him."

"This is about Nahuel?"

"Of course. I need to know if he's still alive. And if he _isn't,_ how he died."

"Well I don't have a good excuse for us all to journey over there right now . . ."

"All? What like the entire guard?"

"Of course. What the hell were you suggesting?"

"That _you_ go with me."

"Alone?"

_"Yes." _

She rolled her eyes like I was a complete and obvious moron who needed to be guided forcefully into understanding the most basic concepts. It made me want to undress her violently and fuck her until she admitted unwittingly with the strength of the pleasure I caused her that I was not some weak boy she could fool with her hybrid charms.

"I don't leave Volterra without Renata."

"Are you afraid?"

I pushed her into the wall, forced her thighs apart with one of mine and pressed it upwards against her. She bit her lip, trapping a small noise that pleased me ridiculously. Her game of hiding her desire for me was really getting very flimsy now and I was sure it was nearly over at last.

"No," I said, letting the word print itself against the skin of her throat with my breath.

The usual color in her cheeks had deepened slightly. I found it bizarre that she was blushing at this but not while she'd brazenly used me for her own pleasure in my room that night.

"Then you'll go." She pushed me away and moved out from the wall, trying to look bored but I saw her movements were slightly uncoordinated and smelled that her blood was rushing about faster than normal. I saw the thin outline of one of nipples pushing the fabric of her shirt outwards in a soft bump before she turned away.

"How am I supposed to explain why I'm running off alone with you?" I leaned back against the wall in the place where I had recently pinned her, feigning the same boredom as her only much more believably as long as you focused above my waist as I was growing increasingly unable to control the reactions of that area with any reliability and I had only partially managed to keep it in check this time.

"So no one knows about Alice's vision?"

"Of course they don't. Do you have any idea how dangerous it would be for anyone to know about that? That they could simply kill _you_ and ensure my death? I haven't been alive this long by exposing myself to those kinds of vulnerabilities."

"Well then make up a story."

"There is no story that would explain this you infuriating girl! I understand that I am burdened with you for now but I really thought that coming from your family you would have more honor than to attempt to destroy another person's life for your own ends."

"Um, really? Did _you_ really just say that?"

I had no defense. I actually started laughing. I had absolutely no control left over my existence and it was suddenly, tragically hilarious.

"Okay. Fine!"

"Good. I already booked tickets and we leave tomorrow night so pack up some jungle clothes because we are _totally_ going to have a jaguar hunting contest."

"What are 'jungle clothes'?"

She was already at the door. She turned around and shrugged.

"I don't know. Shorts?"

_Shorts?_ Just dying instead was starting to sound very appealing . . .

* * *

Even though I had told her no story would be good enough, that didn't mean there _wasn't_ a way. Luckily for me now, I was known to be a bit moody and had actually disappeared for long periods in my rooms on multiple occasions and hadn't see almost anyone for weeks, one time months. There were a few people I had interacted with during those times. Caius always and Jane usually. But I certainly couldn't have _him_ cover for me. I thought Jane would though and if I told Athena that it was important to Renesmee, she would help. Still, the chance of this deception being uncovered was high. But the chance of something terrible happening as a result of my temporary desertion was less than the cost of my life if I didn't do what she wanted. I knew I couldn't just rely on the belief that I had somehow charmed her enough that she would save me out of some misguided affection.

The flight attendant was male. I heard his heart speed up as he spoke to her and it made me feel wantonly possessive. She was not like my other partners in that she was excessively desirable to nearly everyone she meant in some way. The others were all attractive but they didn't have her magic.

I made sure that I was touching her the next time he came by. Not with obvious neediness but enough that he would know I wasn't her father or uncle but someone who had a sexual claim on her. His eyes shifted to where I was brushing the inside of her forearm with my fingertips and I caught a brief flash of her mind. Annoyance. Fuck.

I decided to pick up feigning anger and frustration with her basically kidnapping me. She ate a very small amount of the airplane food. It was even worse than what I had brought her to force her into drinking human blood. But at least she _got_ to eat. This flight was long and there were two more ahead. I hadn't eaten before we left to avoid having to wear those _horrid_ "contact lens." I wondered if I could get away with murdering someone in flight or in one of the airports.

Three hours in, she fell asleep. Her head inclined toward me but not touching. Her hair however, invaded my space, falling over my shoulder and winding itself, with apparent sentience, around my forearm. When the passengers across the aisle also fell asleep I touched it, letting the loose curls loop around my fingers. She stirred and I released them hastily. As my hand dropped, it grazed her arm and I got an image of her dream. I saw myself. She was dreaming about me . . .

I laid my hand on the armrest so it was touching her, already feeling guilty for what felt too much like snooping and allowed her dream to flow into my mind. Me again, sitting next to her in a place I didn't recognize. I looked different, odd. I wondered if it was how she saw me when she was awake or just an altered dream version of me created by the strange warping of her mind's flexibility in sleep. I was smiling at her and it looked kind. She took my arm and looped it over her shoulder. I was reading but she took my book away. I fought her for it playfully before abandoning it to the floor and pushing her down on the couch where we were sitting. She kissed me. We had not kissed yet still. We hadn't done anything at all since that day I took her in the library. But now she dreamed of us doing it. I waited, frozen, to see if it would become sexual. It didn't. I turned her on her side and held her comfortably, kissed her forehead, tucked her hair behind her ear gently.

I jerked my hand away. Was that an unwelcome dream or some tragic fantasy? Had I just seen the thing she wanted that I hadn't been able to divine yet from her conscious behavior? She wanted me to _care about_ her. To be _loving_. Now I knew I would never be able to possess her the way I wanted. Because what she wanted was something I could not give her. I had lost my terrible game. I felt cheated that I had devoted so much time to this and now learned of her silly hope that I was a person I was not.

I considered running as soon as the plane landed but abandoned that idea as quickly as it had surfaced. I still needed her to keep me alive, but I could now stop trying to pursue her with amorous intentions now. Her head fell onto my shoulder and I held my breath so I wouldn't smell her.

I should have just told her what I knew in Volterra instead of letting her drag me into this foolish mission and I felt pathetic that I had allowed my illogical want of her to steal reason to the point that I would do something this ill-advised and dangerous.

* * *

I should have stopped her but she was already in her underwear when she came out of the bathroom.

I didn't need sex and I had turned it down before. But not with anyone I wanted as badly as I wanted her. I knew it was incredibly stupid to be physically involved with her at this point but she didn't really give me a chance to respond. She'd already tugged my shirt from the waistband of my pants and placed her hands on my skin. Her warmth, deceptively suggesting fragility that wasn't there, was intoxicating. She didn't try to kiss me which was good. Kissing was about power to me but I knew it wouldn't be to her and I couldn't have her thinking something more than sex was happening between us.

She willingly accepted my hands and lips on her skin as I undressed her. The other times had been too rushed for me to realize just how lost I was without the guidance of her thoughts. I had to try to interpret her reactions to know if she liked the way I kissed her skin and touched her exposed body. She seemed to, she wasn't toying with me now.

She made me lay down like before but pulled me back up into a sitting position, straddling me when she joined me on the bed. It wasn't a position I would have chosen. It was far too intimate, too natural to have my arms around her in a soft embrace, our faces close and open to kissing and eye contact. She didn't hesitate on taking me inside of her, like she knew I was feeling conflicted and didn't want me to have time to think about it.

I just barely hung onto my composure when I was buried in her all the way. Her body was so different than any of my other lovers, both in temperature and softness. And the way she touched me, with undue reverence rather than lust. With unselfish consideration I hadn't earned and didn't particularly want. I didn't want to admit how much I enjoyed being touched like that though. No one cared for me. It didn't bother me. I had always preferred it that way, immediately cutting off interactions with women at the first sign of them developing any sort of misguided feelings for me. But I couldn't do that now. She really had much more control over me than I had fearfully suspected. I let her continue though, let her caress me sweetly, moving her hips slowly.

Her face was different than usual. The honeyed snark that was usually there was gone and she looked serene but also sad and I was glad to not hear her thoughts so that I could believe she was not in agony over my indifference toward her feelings.

I rarely paid attention to the external reactions of those I slept with. I just followed the line of their thoughts and obeyed the direction given to me by them. But I had to focus now, on her breathing, the way she moved. I'd gone from being the perfect lover to now just hoping to be an adequate one. It was the most terrifying sex I'd ever had. I didn't usually venture into areas where I wasn't assured excellence and here I could easily fall far short of that even if she was in charge of the main part.

I understood now how difficult it was to know if a woman was close to or even had orgasmed. I had—arrogantly it appeared now—thought I could feel it but I didn't have any idea at all. I knew her scent would change slightly afterwards but it was confusing waiting for it.

Finally she placed her small hands on either side of my face and I was encased in a rare panic, trying to decide how to stop her from kissing me, the very thing I had been _trying_ to do for months, thinking it would ensure her submission. Now I knew it would only wrap her heart in the vain hope that I was a different man. The kind who could love her and be a real partner.

But she didn't kiss me. She breathed out against my cheek and told me to come with her. I had had woman do many things to me in bed from the most innocent and clumsily chaste to the openly wanton but none of them had ever done anything quite like what she had just done. At least the effect was much different. The others weren't very concerned with how I felt or my pleasure beyond being smug at their own sexual skill the way I was and even though I could not hear her thoughts, I knew that she wanted me to focus on and feel the pleasure she was causing in me.

I couldn't stop it. She kept her hands on my face and moved her hips faster, then unexpectedly opened her mind to that moment with me. Her power wasn't the same as what I heard when reading regular minds. Those were more like observations but she could share her experience in a visceral way. Make you feel what she felt, hear what she heard. I felt her hands on me both from her perspective and mine. I knew how to touch now, how to angle my hips to make it better for her because I could feel it myself. I saw others' climaxes but I felt hers, layered over and nearly eclipsing my own.

And I experienced something no other person ever had except _maybe_ her other lovers: the real difference between the sexual climax of males and females. Simultaneously and so powerful it nearly drained me. They complemented each other in a way too complex to describe and it was more fierce than the grip of any drug or adrenaline high I had seen through human minds.

She fell asleep on top of me after, her face tilted up under my chin, one hand twined in my hair. I caught a glimpse of a dream. No images, just peace. Happiness. An echo of my name sounding in a sweet voice, floating in a void of joy.

I should have moved her, I wasn't sure how it was even comfortable for her to be asleep on me as cool as I was but I did not and when her mind dived again into a new dream, I lay there and watched it, like Burgess' Alex, forced to view things he once desired through a lens of discomfort.

I had wanted her mind, to know her secrets and now they were before me. I saw her in a wedding dress with her mother beside her. They could have been sisters the way Bella appeared to still be a teenage girl. Then they were in a small building, she was walking down an aisle and at the end of if it, a dark-skinned groom waited. I had only ever seen this Quileute youth in his human form in Edward's mind. He had been a wolf only that day in Forks but I was certain it was Jacob. She had lied to me about her association with him. Or not, I supposed. I had called him her "boyfriend" and she had said he wasn't. Because he was her _husband_. It was the kind of minimal misdirection I usually admired but now I knew there was a reason she had kept this from me and just how well she had hidden her pain to make me believe her strong and I had gone about this all the wrong way on that untrue assumption.

The dream skipped like a quickened film-strip over their life until a few larger events surfaced, her pregnant and then not and no images of there ever being a child. Then Jacob looking confused, him transforming in a situation that looked unexpected by the reactions of those around them. Then doctors' offices and the human word "cancer", that word which spelled death and brought fear to them, in a way few others did. I didn't know if I was still seeing her dream or if I had somehow finally accessed her memories the easy way I could with others but I next saw X-rays of a large skull with a dark mass near the base of the brain I knew from the minds of the many doctors I had killed to be an inoperable tumor. He'd lost control of his transformations completely as the cancer progressed and that was when her Uncle, the well-muscled and large-hearted Emmett, had bravely taken on the brutal task of ending his life to stop his unconscious reign terror on his family and wife.

She became obsessed with death. She wasn't the type to commit suicide so she researched endlessly to see if maybe it was coming for her naturally and that's when she had come to me, after running out of all options. I knew then that she hadn't come to Volterra to find out how long she might be forced to live in pain, she'd come to find out how soon she could hope to die. She was ready to die then and my delays had only resulted in her developing those dangerous, soft feelings for me, changing her objective to waiting to know how long she _could_ live now that she thought she had found a new reason to . . .

God, what had I done? I actually felt ashamed of myself. Guilt wasn't something I experienced often but I had done something truly awful this time, something I did actually take steps to avoid in the past, sometimes at the cost of my own pleasure with a woman I hadn't quite finished with sexually, to prevent exactly this from happening.

I needed to fix this but I wasn't sure if I could really be cruel to her. I wasn't often openly cruel to anyone but I had let her get too close to simply brush her off now especially with her aunt's specter of death still stalking us with its threat of unforeseeable demise . . .

* * *

END NOTES: Yeah. _That._


	6. A Selfish Man

AN~My email suddenly decided notifications from this site were spam about a month ago so I'm very sorry if I missed any messages or reviews. I just discovered it yesterday. All fixed now.

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**5**

Hunting in the rain forest was enjoyable enough. I did not wear shorts but she had talked me into jeans and a t-shirt which felt too casual to be outside in like I was running around in my underwear. We could get away with hunting in the daylight because so little direct sun got through the canopy of leaves so we were freer than we would have been to roam by day.

We'd been in the country for three days, I questioned many people without them knowing and found no one who knew anything useful. Most didn't know anything of vampires and the ones who suspected believed in unrealistic, superstitious ways.

The sun was going down and we climbed up above the leafy roof of the forest to watch it. It hung in the distance as a glowing orange sphere, burning its way silently toward the horizon.

There were no branches strong enough to hold us and we were clinging to the trunk of a massive tropical pine.

"We should go further into the forest and look for tribes. They'd be more likely to know some, right?"

"Maybe."

I had been distant with her since that night we'd been together which we hadn't spoken of since. I followed her lead and didn't argue. I hoped she would tire of this mission so we could return to Italy and then I would tell her what I knew and hope that she'd appreciate the risk I took coming here enough to not let me die when the opportunity came for her to prevent it.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm in the middle of the rainforest in lower class human clothes, how okay am I expected to be?"

God, why was she asking that? How long before she decided to blurt her unfortunate feelings out to me hoping I would return them? Stupid girl, what did she think was going to happen? That I would abandon my life and follow her to America? Pal around with humans?

"Sorry, grumpy. Go eat a human or something."

I hadn't fed on anything but jungle cats and monkeys since we arrived. My eyes were already amber-colored. I would need to correct that before we went back.

I was listening to her heart's regular, unusual thud out of habit when it suddenly stopped completely. She made a sound like she had been hit by something heavy and it started again, resuming its usual pace.

"What was that?"

"What?"

"_Your heart,_ Renesmee. What just happened?"

"Oh it does that sometimes," she said trying to sound dismissive and not doing very well at it.

"Has it always?"

"No."

"When did it start?"

"A few years ago . . ."

How had I not seen this that night while she slept? The jungle seemed to drop in temperature from balmy to frigid around me and now I knew that this was how I was meant save her, by giving her the knowledge that to live she only had to abandon her human half and become fully a vampire.

It happened again, twice in a row and I had to catch her arm to keep her from falling. She recovered quickly and started back toward the ground. I followed, encompassed with a new, awful realization. As I had listened to her heart breaking I had become aware of my own doing something similar. There was a sickening ache in my chest because Athena had been right.

I loved her.

And she was already dying before she ever came to my door.

I was struck horribly by the knowledge that in my selfish deception I may have waited too long to save her. For the venom to spread adequately, I would need her heart to keep beating.

She was twenty feet up when she let go. I thought she had just jumped but she hadn't, she was falling. I dropped the last eighty feet to her. She was already standing again by then but she looked unsteady. I caught her arm to support her.

"Has this been happening more frequently?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"It was only once or twice the first year. And then maybe every other month. And now . . ." She looked away, back up into the tree we had just exited. Her expression lost clarity and I had to jostle her physically to bring her back to what seem like consciousness.

"Tell me."

"Several times a day for the past few weeks."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you would care."

The real, honest agony of thwarted love, as sweet and idiotic as that experienced by humans, overwhelmed me and I kissed her then for the first time. She didn't stop me. I hoped it was because she wanted me to and not because she was too weak to push me away. She leaned into me and put her arms around my neck. I tasted salt and discovered she was crying. I broke our kiss and placed my forehead against hers. After three thousand years of life, I had finally come to a moment where honesty would get me further than lies. It was time to admit my deception and hope it was soon enough to correct the damage it had done.

"Nessie, I lied to you."

I had never used this odd little nickname before. We were almost always alone and there was no need to use names and when I did it was always her full name and nearly always used in a way which sounded condescending, like I was speaking to an underling, reminding her that she was not a powerful as I was.

"I know how to save you." My voice was shaky and I didn't try to smooth it out. I didn't care. For once my need to be powerful and contained seemed stupidly pointless. "I've known since the first month."

"Oh yeah?" She squinted at me like a person who had taken sleeping pills and was attempting to stay awake through the drug's chemical lullaby.

"I found something in an old journal. I know—"

She pulled away but it wasn't voluntary, she had gone limp suddenly. Her heart had stopped again. I followed her to the damp undergrowth. Her face had gone pale the way humans looked when they died but she didn't look dead, her skin just looked like a regular vampire's, pale and beautifully translucent, slightly iridescent in the dimming light.

"I know what needs to happen. I can change you, I'll do it now."

She smiled vaguely and closed her eyes. I shook her and she looked at me again. She was still alive now but it was obvious her vampire half wasn't strong enough to sustain her for long. I laid her flat and performed the chest compressions I had seen that humans did to restart a failed heart. It wasn't working. I heard several of her ribs break and I stopped.

She was still making small noises. Maybe her heart didn't need to beat. Maybe I could do it manually. I brought my mouth to her neck and bit into the large artery there. The blood tasted stale. It had stopped moving and confirmed terribly the death of her human half but I couldn't accept it. I never lost and I refused to simply allow it now. I moved on to her wrists and ankles then directly above her heart.

She grabbed at me weakly and brought my face down to hers.

"I found that journal and left it out. I wanted to know if you'd tell me . . ."

She set her hand on my cheek and showed me myself. The day she arrived. Then me pretending I wasn't watching her. Me bringing her food. I watched myself change. From irritated to desperate to pliant. I watched myself reading that journal and then closing it and lying to her face about what I had read.

I laid down next to her, like in her dream, holding her carefully, this lovely girl I had murdered because I didn't understand how to recognize the difference between want and love.

"Thank you, Aro."

"Don't thank me. What I've done to you is awful. Evil."

"But you're here with me now . . ."

How could she forgive me? It wasn't right. I didn't deserve it. I kissed her softly and she slipped her hand into my hair.

"I like you kissing me like that. I've been waiting so long . . ."

"But why did you wait? I would have done it before, I_ tried_ . . ."

"Because I knew if I let you have me that way that that's all I would ever be to you . . ."

She was right, of course, but the fact that she knew it all along, how wicked I was but loved me anyway, hoped I could change just for her, broke my newly discovered heart.

"Why did you let me now?" I wanted her to say it. I was still a coward and I needed her to expose herself before I could tell her she wasn't alone in her feelings.

"Because you're afraid."

She knew me so well, better than anyone and I didn't try to hide it from her. I admitted it readily, clinging to her hard enough that I was probably hurting her a little bit.

"I am. And I'm stupid. Please stay with me. I'll make this right. I'll . . . be better for you."

I was making idiotic promises I knew I couldn't keep. Sentimental human promises. I didn't really think I could change but I thought that I _wanted to_, maybe that was enough.

"Okay," she said. She put her face into my hair and closed her eyes again.

But I knew she was going to die. Her promise was simply to try to please me, not something she thought she could keep. I knew it was too late. And I understood then how her life was necessary in saving mine. Her death was the thing that would _cause_ mine.

I waited four days and she did not move again. I sought a village and carried her into it. The natives were mostly outside, they watched me with terror as I stepped through odd patches of sunlight into the center of their habitat.

I ignored them and approached their fire. It was mostly embers but enough to light the dry branch I had collected. I carried that torch in one hand and entered one of the small dwellings. There was a woman sitting on the floor with a baby. I ordered her to leave. I spoke Portuguese and I didn't know if she understood it but she obeyed quickly, dashing past me with her infant held protectively against her chest.

I placed Renesmee carefully on the floor and went around the edge of the hut igniting the walls and crude pieces of furniture. When I was sure it was beyond saving, I went back and resumed the position I had had for those days in the trees, holding her against me so that I could smell her hair. I watched her face until the smell of the smoke overtook the smell of her and then I closed my eyes and waited for death, the last sounds that passed voluntarily from me a far too late confession of my love for her.

The words that would have saved us both if I were not a selfish man.

~FIN~

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END NOTES: I'm seriously out-of-it right now so I really don't know how well this ending works. I like it, this was supposed to a short fic but I'm sure this is not what anyone was anticipating. Had to have a sad ending eventually though, right? You guys have gotten away with _so many_ HEAs from me! It's madness considering how my original works usually go. Hah.


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